HTML - charset windows 1255 works but utf-8

Question

I wrote html page that displays mixed hebrew/english content.It works fine with charset "windows - 1255"

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN""http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html dir="rtl" lang="he">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1255">

,But I figured that people will have trouble if their machines doesn't support hebrew. I changed the charset to utf-8 and got

HTML:

 meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"

View:

"��� ��� ������, ��� ����� �����, �� ������ ���� ��� ���� �� ������"
Read zohar ��� ����
....

Isn't utf-8 suppose to support more chars then windows 1255?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 07 '13 at 19:10

I guess when you changed the tag, you didn't tell your editor to convert the file to UTF-8. So, the file is still in Windows-1255 format, but the browser tries to read it as if it was UTF-8, so you get bad/unreadable characters.

I have no idea which editor you're using, so i can't tell you how to put it in UTF-8 mode. Try to find a setting in your options regarding the character set to use. Or, open the file in Windows notepad, and when saving it, make sure you select "Codepage: UTF-8" from the drop down box next to the save button.

actually, I was using the notepad as editor...since HTML is not my main field on knowladge I wan't aware of such details. Thank you. — Alaychem goes to Codidact, Dec 07 '13 at 19:17

score -2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

-2

Relation to Unicode

The Unicode Hebrew block (U+0590–U+05FF) follows Windows-1255 by encoding both letters and vowel-points in the same relative positions as Windows-1255. Unicode goes further in encoding cantillation marks in lower positions. Unicode Hebrew is always in logical order.

For modern applications UTF-8 or UTF-16 is a preferred encoding.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1255

It seems to me that your encoding should still work if your characters are within the Unicode Hebrew block.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Dec 07 '13 at 19:07

skiwi

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well, the chars are within range. Still dosen't work – Alaychem goes to Codidact Dec 07 '13 at 19:11
1

When you use the meta tag to set the charset to unicode, you are promising the browser that the page is in unicode. If your html file on the server is still encoded in Windows-1255 it won't display correctly. – Mike Stotts Dec 07 '13 at 19:25

HTML - charset windows 1255 works but utf-8

2 Answers2